Taiwan’s Kuo Kuan-lin (), who defeated Indian S. Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian in the men’s singles final in straight sets on Sunday, won the gold medal at the BWF World Junior Titles in Santander, Spain.
685th in the world In the men’s singles final at the Palacio de Deportes de Santander, Kuo defeated world No. 110 Sankar Muthusamy 21-14, 22-20, taking 48 minutes to ensure Taiwan’s second-ever men’s singles gold in the championship.
Additionally, it was Taiwan’s third victory in the age-bunch competition (for competitors under 19), following victories in the men’s and women’s singles events in 2014 and 2015 by world No. 97 Lu Chia-hung and Olympian Cheng Shao-chieh, respectively.
The competition’s favourite, world No. 79 Alex Lanier of France, was eliminated by Kuo in the quarterfinals on Friday. On Sunday, Kuo started the final on the front foot by using a strong approach to lead 11-8 at halftime.
However, after the interval, Kuo allowed his advantage to slip away swiftly as Sankar Muthusamy clawed his way back to even the score at 13-13. However, Kuo quickly came back to win the next six points, and he then kept playing to end the first game 21-14.
Kuo similarly jumped into the second game with vigour, leading 11-9 at the half. Sankar Muthusamy made many attempts to engage the Taiwanese shuttler in drawn-out battles in an effort to tyre him out, but Kuo turned the tables and edged the match in his favour at 20-14.
Sankar Muthusamy then responded by saving six match focuses to make the score 20-20, but Kuo came back with significant advantages for two to seal the victory and win the championship.
The BWF World Junior Titles were last held in 2019 due to the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 competitions due to the Coronavirus epidemic.
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